I’ll be doing the New York Film Festival today and tonight before hitting Connecticut for the weekend. I couldn’t stay at Jett’s place and was therefore forced to book a Manhattan hotel room. I looked around and couldn’t find anything better cost-wise than a boilerplate Comfort Inn on Ludlow Street, which is a block and a half north of Delancey. Just a standard room with a queen bed, a TV, a bathroom and wifi, and it’s costing me in the vicinity of $250 plus tax. I’m sorry but that strikes me as exorbitant.

I’m currently sitting in a McDonald’s at the corner of Essex and Delancey, partly for the wifi but also because I was starving. This morning’s NYFF press screening (10 am) is Mike Mills‘ 20th Century Women, which I caught in Los Angeles last week. This afternoon’s press screening (1 pm) is Kleber Mendonça Filho‘s Aquarius, which I saw and quite admired in Cannes last May — deserves a second viewing. I got the usual two hours of sleep on the plane so at some point I need to take a nap.

McDonald’s work station at Essex and Delancey — Friday, 10.7, 10:10 am.

“There is no Batman movie happening yet. We’re still trying to figure it out…you know, get the script and budget and all that stuff. And someone said, ‘what are you calling it?’ and I had said, like, back when we were promoting another movie, I was like ‘we don’t have a name for it, we’re just going with The Batman or Batman movie.’ And [after] I said that, everyone was like ‘Affleck announces the name of his Batman movie.’” — Ben Affleck during a recent E! Online interview that was mainly focused on The Accountant.

So Affleck’s Batflick, which sounds like it’ll be released in 2018 or ’19, is back to being a blank slate. Which should be a relief to diehards as The Batman radiated nothingness. I was thinking the other day about re-titling Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales as The Adventures of Captain Fatass, and a couple of commenters said “now that‘s something I’d pay to see!” I genuinely believe that Affleck should give his Batman flick some kind of locoweed title — something off the grid and fuck-all sounding. It hit me as I was riding on the A train this morning on my way into town from JFK: Bing Bang Bat Bongo.

Variety‘s Elizabeth Wagmeister reported yesterday that E! has shut down production of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, apparently out of concern for Kim Kardashian‘s emotions in the wake of the recent Paris robbery. “Kim’s well-being is our core focus right now,” an E! spokesperson told Wagmeister. “No decision has been made as to when production will resume.” KUWTK has been sinking in the ratings, and then a potential ratings-booster like the Paris heist comes along and E! stops shooting? Am I mistaken about KUWTK being a reality show? Wagmeister reports that E! signed the Kardashies to a three-year extension last year, which will extend KUWTK‘s presence into 2018, but when something like the Paris robbery happens, you exploit the shit out of it. Wagmeister writes that “when asked if cameras were rolling in Paris around the time of the robbery, E! declined to comment.”